Why is so much concern about nuclear waste?

Question

They say they are afraid of contaminating the underground water? Well, can we dig deep and built water proof concrete and store all nuclear waste in barrels for decades? Can this be done? So what is the problem then?

If it is dangerous then what energy sources safe yet solve the energy needed to run the economy? If there are none, then human is doom you think, because everywhere we run, we create pollution, either it is oil or nuclear, or choose to go back to the period everything is manual and transport with walking and horses?

Answer 1

Nuclear waste is the mixture of unusable fissionable material which is highly saturated as far as radioactive contents are concerned. Such higly radioactive materials are a cause of concern for health of all the living beings. The radioactive materials do not cease to emit radiation even when they are sealed in whatever type of protective storage barrels. The protective layering just absorbs the radiation. However as the time passes the radiation starts affecting the container itself and starts spreading outwards. so theoritically speaking at one point of time the radiation will be able to penetrate the protective layering of the container and start sperading out. The level of radiation may be low and it may take hundred of years for that to happen.

Answer 2

Waste has been handled poorly in the past. Waste from the Manhattan project (which made the first atomic bombs in world war two) was poorly handled because at that time the dangers were not so well known and the war effort was considered more important anyway. That is the waste that is getting into the ground water. But it has nothing to do with waste being generated today. Today we know very well how to safely handle nuclear waste. Ending all nuclear power production will not solve the problems of that old waste. Using nuclear power today with what we now know will not add to the problem. But some people are still skeptical, and they have a lot of political power, because they say simple scary stuff which gets the public on their side. Stuff like, "nuclear waste is getting into the ground water". It is true but misleading; misleading in the way the antinuclear people want it to be.

Answer 3

The very obvious answer is to use wireless nuclear energy. The way that works is that you set up a huge fusion nuclear reactor a safe distance away from the Earth. I would suggest about 93,000,000 miles would be about right. If it is fueled with a large amount of hydrogen it will run for many years maintenance free. So you turn on this huge reactor and it gets extremely hot and starts sending visible radiation towards the earth. Then you make a bunch of energy receivers using semiconductors that will convert visible radiation into electricity. That way you get wireless nuclear power. What do you think?

By the way the really cool aspect of this concept is that you don't have to build the nuclear reactor, because it is already there - the sun.

Solar Power is the way to go. There really is no other alternative.

Answer 4

the problem is that in human history there had been a lot of trouble because the nuclear stuff, to many people had died and even thought the countries and governments do not care about it, they just want to be more advance than other. one good example is the arms race between United states and the soviet union decades ago. and about the pollution everyone in the planet it really cannot be stop, because if there is nuclear waste there will always be pollution and concrete or dig cannot really resolve the problem.

Answer 5

Burying the waste was never a long term solution, just one that would allow the current plants to operate without storing the waste on their sites. Spent fuel waste is kept under water and cooled until it no longer gives off decay heat and then placed in dry storage in casks and currently stored at the plant site. Liquid waste is turned into glass so there is no liquids buried. The lawsuits currently blocking Yucca Mountain are for analyses 1,000s of years in the future. The US gov't promised the utilities that a waste repository would be built and in fact a portion of the cost that they charge for nuclear electricity goes to funding that repository and waste storage and is still one of the cheapest forms of energy.

Answer 6

The world is already extremely littered and polluted enough and little is being done about it. No one really seems to give a damn about pollution or the environment, so no one has thought of it yet. Another reason why we haven't done that yet is because some nuclear waste can eat through concrete.

Answer 7

Nuclear waste has to be stored in special containers, because it can remain activer for hundreds of years.Not to mention the nuclear rods used would burn through the barrels and concrete still defeating the purpose.

Answer 8

The problem is that nuclear contamination, from nuclear waste, is a highly toxic contaminant to the human body, and it says toxic for hundreds of generations. Could anything be worse. Do you trust, that nuclear waste will be stored and disposed of properly. I for one do not.

Answer 9

Except nothing is waterproof for that long; at the very least, we have no way to know that it will actually last that long, as we haven't been around enough. After all, we'll need to store it forever virtually, not just decades. We have to foresee thousands and thousands of years from now, and who knows what events might occur between now and then.

Answer 10

the containers break...and the effects of nuclear waste is still quite potent for some time...longer than decades.